The Titoite Revisionists' Anti-Marxist Views on the Nation – An Expression of Their Idealist Reactionary World Outlook

As always, the Titoite revisionists continue to claim that they have
allegedly taken up and solved the national question in their country in
a Marxist-Leninist way. Of course, the opposite is the truth. The
materialist scientific analyses the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha have
made of this dangerous revisionist trend have fully proved that the
Titoites' theories and practices on the nation and the national
question, like all their views and stands on the theory and practice of
scientific socialism contain nothing proletarian and nothing socialist,
they are a flagrant departure from Marxism-Leninism. The theories of
the Titoite revisionists on the notion of nation, which express their
idealist reactionary world-outlook, directly serve the interests of the
Yugoslav chauvinist bourgeoisie. They are attempts at providing a
“theoretical basis” for the bourgeois nationalist and chauvinist policy
which is implemented in Yugoslavia and which characterizes its whole
system of capitalist “self-administration”.

The Marxist-Leninist
theory has long ago provided and formulated a complete materialist
scientific concept on the nation. Proceeding from the main principles
laid down by Marx, Engels and Lenin on this question, on the basis of a
thorough and all-round dialectical analysis of the historical processes
and material conditions which have led to the creation and
strengthening of social communities and the replacement of lower
communities, such as kinships and tribes, with other, higher
communities, nationalities and nations, J. V. Stalin made the
scientific definition of the nation. “The nation is an historically
formed permanent community of people which has emerged on the basis of
the community of language, territory, economic life and psychological
formation, which manifests itself in the community of culture”*.
This definition expresses the more general features and the main
components of the nation. Negation of each of them and attempts at
adding other elements to them are nothing other than open departure
from the Marxist-Leninist theory on the nation, abortive efforts to
cover up and justify the pursuit of a non-proletarian policy on the
national question.

* J. V. Stalin Works, vol. 2, p. 295, Alb. ed.

With their views and practical stands, the
Yugoslav revisionists have placed themselves in open opposition to the
scientific materialist conception and definition of the nation in all
its components.

After rising against J. V. Stalin's Marxist-Leninist concept of the
nation and hit scientific definition, one of the Titoite leaders and
main theoreticians, Eduard Kardelj, undertook to make a “new”
definition. “The nation, as we conceive it today,” he writes, “is an
historical, socio-economic and cultural-political phenomenon which has
emerged in definite conditions of the social division of labour.”*

* Development of the Slovene national question, pp. 58-59, Prishtina, 1977.

As is seen, in this definition of his E. Kardelj excludes, not
unintentionally, from the content of the nation everything which
characterizes the essence of a national community. He openly distorts
the historical process of the emergence and consolidation of nations,
denies their more general feature which characterizes them as permanent
communities of people, and ignores such determining elements as the
community of language, territory and economic links.

Of course, Kardelj's definition of the nation is not without ulterior
aims. It is the conclusion of a voluminous book which, as the author
himself says, was written to clarify and work out the theoretical bases
of the national program of the LCY.*.
We find the anti-Marxist and anti-scientific spirit which pervades this
conception of the notion of nation lying at the foundation of the
Titoite revisionists' theories and practices on the nation and national
question.

* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 23.

Among the main distortions the Titoite revisionists
make of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation is their
falsification of the process of its formation. Claiming that “the
nation... has emerged in certain conditions of the social division of
labour”, E. Kardelj fails to mention the main and true cause which led
to the formation and consolidation of national communities which, as is
known, is the creation of the capitalist mode of production. He goes as
far as to preach openly that the social division of labour is the basic
cause, not only of the formation of national communities, but also of
the emergence of the capitalist order.

Of course, this is a concept and stand which runs flagrantly counter to
the historical process of social development, the material conditions
and the objective laws which led to the emergence of the capitalist
mode of production. Analysis of these conditions and knowledge of these
laws, an analysis which has been made in detail by Marx, Engels, Lenin
and Stalin, shows that it is not the social division of labour which
brings about such transformations in society as the emergence of
nations and the capitalist mode of production, but it is precisely the
capitalist mode of production which determines both the emergence of
nations and the need for the deepening of the social division of
labour.

In Capital, his monumental work, K. Marx brings scientific arguments to
show the process of the overthrow of feudalism and the emergence of
capitalism. At the foundation of this process lies, not the social
division of labour, as E. Kardelj tries to make out, but the
accumulation of capital, the concentration of great wealth in money in
the hands of the big landowners, merchants and usurers. The owners of
this capital, in their constant efforts to increase it, concentrate the
means of production and workers in workshops. In this manner the first
capitalist enterprises emerged which used hired workers who did manual
work on the basis of the division of labour. Creation of the two new
basic classes of society – the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
creation of a unified national market and the deepening of the social
division of labour are an expression and a result of this degree of
development of social production and the relative material relations.

The social division of labour has existed in pre-capitalist social
formations, but it has not led and could not lead to the emergence of
nations, nor can it lead to the overthrow of one social order and the
triumph of another, higher social order, because, as an historical
category, the social division of labour assumes its definite forms, and
differs and deepens depending on the nature of socio-economic
formations. Precisely on this question K. Marx pointed out that “...the
manifactural division of labour is a very specific result of the
capitalist mode of production.”*
Criticising Proudhon, who conceived the division of labour as a
permanent category, as the determining cause which led to the emergence
of all capitalist relations of production, K. Marx stressed: “The
division of labour within the workshop developed after the accumulation
and concentration of the means of production and workers,”**
that “the development of the division of labour presupposes the union
of workers in a workshop..., actually this workshop being a condition
for the existence of the division of labour.”***
Hence it emerges that it is not the division of labour that determines
the transition from feudalism to capitalism. And since nations are the
inevitable product of the bourgeois epoch of social development, the
process of their emergence can by no means be linked with the social
division of labour.

V. I. Lenin and J. V. Stalin proved that
nations were formed in the process of the emergence and development of
capitalism, in the process of the unification of local markets into one
national market. During this process economic links are created which
envelop the whole population speaking a common language and living on
the same territory. From these positions and in this spirit, V. I.
Lenin analyses the process of tae formation of the Russian nation.
“Only the new period of Russian history (about the 17th century),” says
he, “is characterized by the actual merger of all these regions, lands
and principalities into one whole. This merger... was brought about by
the extension of exchanges among regions, the gradual growth of the
goods turnover, and the concentration of the small local markets into
one all-Russian market.”*

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 164, Alb. edn.

The thesis of the Titoite revisionists, who link the process of the
formation of nations with the social division of labour in capitalism,
conceals in itself counter-revolutionary aims. According to this
pseudo-theory, just as the social division of labour in capitalism
allegedly led to the formation of nations, so, in the conditions of
present-day imperialism, the development of science, technique and the
technical-scientific revolution, when the social division of labour has
been deepened and extended to international dimensions, automatically
leads to the closeness and union of nations and the dying away of
national differences. “The social division of labour which is required
by this development of the productive forces and the volume of exchange
of material values in the world,” E. Kardelj writes, “goes necessarily
beyond narrow national borders, brings nations closer together and
includes man directly in the mechanism of the world economy. Along with
this, man's awareness of his material and cultural interest must be
changed and, in fact is being changed. Right now international
organizations for economic co-operation are being formed, which show
that the awareness of the common economic interests is transcending
national borders and extending to ever larger regions... This is the
process of unification of nations which is necessarily brought by the
social division of labour in the epoch in which mankind is entering
socialism.”* One cannot be more explicit.

* Development of the Slovene national question, pp. 59-60.

The metaphysical and counter-revolutionary character of the claims of
the Titoites lies in the fact that these consider the elimination of
national oppression, and the question of the establishment of equality
among nations and their closeness and union as phenomena that can be
settled in the framework of the capitalist order and only intensifying
the international division of labour. Proceeding from these positions,
the Titoite revisionists negate the struggle of the people's masses in
oppressed nations for freedom and independence against the bourgeoisie
of oppressing nations, and with this they actually justify and
encourage the deepening of inequality among nations the most savage
national oppression.

The objective tendency of imperialism to intensify economic, political
and cultural links, and to transcend and break down national boundaries
on the basis of the international socialization of capitalist
production, as Lenin has pointed out with scientific precision, does
not and can never lead to the voluntary coming together and union of
nations, as the Titoite revisionists make out. On the contrary, the
only correct road followed by the proletariat according to this
tendency is that of struggle against any national inequality, of
resolute support for the liberation movements of oppressed nations, and
of the internationalist union of the proletariat and the working people
within one country and on an international scale to shake off the yoke
of capital, and to fight the bourgeoisie and imperialism.

It is quite clear that the “bringing closer together” and “union” of
nations in the conditions of imperialism, about which the Titoites talk
is nothing other than a reflection of the present-day capitalist
reality which is characterized by strained national and international
relations; it is the right which the bourgeoisie of the oppressor
nations, the American and Soviet bourgeoisie, in the first place,
arrogates to itself to subdue other nations by violence and to trample
underfoot their sovereignty. The Titoite interpretation of the
imperialist tendency to intensify economic, political and cultural
links between nations and to break down and transcend national
boundaries, which is allegedly brought about by the further deepening
of the social division of labour overlooks the deep-going and
irreconcilable contradictions between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie, between oppressor nations and oppressed nations; it is
tantamount to open preaching of the idea that the oppressed nations
should submit and sacrifice their cause to the interests of the
superpowers and other imperialist powers.

Upholding the view that the formation, existence, union and merger of
nations are determined only by the social division of labour, the
Titoite revisionists slide into utterly metaphysical positions.

First, they arbitrarily dissociate the national community from the
socio-economic order that begets it, from the capitalist relations of
production, and, in this manner, disregard the radical changes that
take place in the development of nations as a result of the change of
the social order, the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of
socialism. Precisely for this reason, E. Kardelj violently opposes the
Marxist thesis which makes a distinction of principle between the
socialist nations and the bourgeois nations and even considers this
distinction absurd.*

* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 78.

Second, the metaphysical position of the Titoite revisionists becomes
even more obvious from their stand towards the future of nations.
Advocating the union of nations and the elimination of national
distinctions in the conditions of the existence of private property and
capitalist relations of production, the Titoites actually oppose the
free and independent development of nations, their language and
culture, a development which can reach its highest degree only in the
conditions of the socialist and communist relations of production, only
when conditions for the political rule of the proletariat in society
exist.

Negation of the thesis that nations are permanent social communities of
people is another distortion of the materialist theory of the nation by
the Yugoslav revisionists.

Marxism-Leninism has long since proved that the common language, the
common territory and the community of economic links and culture
created under the direct influence of the historical process and handed
down from one generation to the other, make for a strong and lasting
community of a nation. The national consciousness, which is a
reflection of the very strong and close links of the members of one
nation, is formed and strikes deep roots on this basis. In these
objective links the members of different nations see their vital
interests, hence national awareness becomes a source of struggle for
national self-affirmation and is transformed into such exceptional
strength as enables even smaller nations or parts of them to stand up
for centuries to efforts by larger oppressor nations to assimilate them
by violence. This conclusion has been borne out long ago by the
protracted and heroic struggle which many nations have waged and
continue to wage to win their freedom.

Permanence of nations, their resistance and inner strength, which has
stood up and continues to stand up to the assimilating and
exterminating aims of chauvinists, has forced the ruling classes of
oppressor nations to use, along with unrestrained violence, different
means of spiritual enslavement in order to achieve their goals — the
enslavement and assimilation of the annexed nations or parts of them.
For this purpose they have been concocting all sorts of ”theories” and
views through which they cunningly try to sow indifference about the
national belonging of the masses of people in the oppressed nations, to
deaden peoples' profound feelings about their language, culture,
history and ancestral customs or to suppress them altogether so as to
undermine or wreck their struggle for national affirmation.

One of these pseudo-theories is that which identifies the national community with the state
community. According to this theory, in a multinational state the
national belonging of every citizen is not determined on the basis of
the language and other components of the nation, but on the basis of
citizenship.

The Yugoslav revisionists have long ago adopted the
bourgeois theory which indentifies the national community with the
state community. E. Kardelj proceeds from these idealist metaphysical
positions when, in flagrant opposition to the Marxist-Leninist
materialist theory, he excludes from the notion of nation one of it
essential features – its character as a permanent community of people,
and this is not the only accidental stand of his.

There is a long history of attempts at identifying the national
community with the state community in Yugoslavia. They emerged
immediately after the creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes, as a tendency of the Serb bourgeoisie to the Serbization of
other, smaller nations included in the Yugoslav state. The Worker
Socialist (Communist) Party of Yugoslavia slid completely into these
positions of the Serb bourgeoisie when, at its 1st Congress held in
April 1919, it adopted the slogan “one nation and one national state”,
and at its 2nd Congress which was held in June 1920, it remained in the
same troubled waters, by issuing the slogan of “national unity.”*
This blatantly nationalist and chauvinist stand heavily compromised the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the eyes of the oppressed nations.

* The slogan of “one nation and one national state,” or the slogan of
“national unity,” was launched by the Serb bourgeoisie immediately
after the creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
This slogan expressed a whole bourgeois nationalist and chauvinist
policy. According to this slogan, it was supposed that, from the
national stand-point, the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes had common
characteristics and formed a national unity. The policy of “national
unity” pursued by the Serb bourgeoisie was aimed at the Serbization of
non- Serb nations included in the Yugoslav Kingdom. See An Outline of
the History of the LCY, pp. 47-48, 68-69, Prishtina 1963.

However, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was very slow and
hesitating, to move away from this opportunist, bourgeois nationalist
stand. Under the strong pressure of the masses and the criticism of the
Comintern it needed a full three years to formally renounce the
Great-Serb slogan of “national unity”. Later still the Communist Party
of Yugoslavia did not free itself from the bourgeois mentality and
illusions in its conception of and stand on the nation and the national
question. This is clearly seen in the fact that, at the 2nd Conference
of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, the nations included in the
Yugoslav state community were treated only as tribes and, on this
basis, the idea of the “Yugoslav nation” was launched which was
allegedly “in the process of formation”, that is, which would result
from the union and merger of these so-called tribes.*

* An outline of the history of the LCY, p. 113, Prishtina 1963.

This conception of the nation and the national question on the part of
the CPY carried in essence the idea of “national unity”; hence it
coincided fully with the aims of the Great-Serb bourgeoisie for the
denationalization and assimilation of the other nations included in the
Yugoslav Kingdom. Precisely this unhealthy situation in the ranks of
the CPY, especially in its leadership, forced the Comintern to dwell
repeatedly on the Yugoslav national question.

At the enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist
International which carried out its proceedings in Moscow, from 21
March to 6 April 1925, there was a special discussion of the national
policy of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and attention was drawn on
the great harm caused to the movement for national liberation in
Yugoslavia by the spread of the idea that allegedly the Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes were one nation. “The legend of the national unity of the
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes,” says the resolution of this Plenum,
“should be exposed as a disguise of the oppressive nationalist policy
of the Serb chauvinist bourgeoisie. No communist can support the spread
of this legend through... the fable of the natural merger which is
supposed to assist the process of economic development.”*

* The enlarged Plenum of the EC of the CI, p. 594, Moscow 1925.

The stand of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia on the problem of
Yugoslavism as a national identity did not change in principle at the
time when the Titoites came to the leadership of this party, either.
Tito, Kardelj and other Titoites “opposed” the views of their
predecessors on “the one Yugoslav nation” and called it “old
Yugoslavism”, but they did this not because they proceeded from
positions of principle, or from the principles of Marxism-Leninism in
coping with the national question, but only in order to defend the
interests of the Croatian-Slovene bourgeoisie from the assimilating
policy of the Serb bourgeoisie, to establish some kind of equilibrium
between these two bourgeois groupings. Hence the tactic of the Titoites
who, on the one hand, criticized, as they still do, “old Yugoslavism”
while on the other hand, loudly propagate and support their “new
socialist” Yugoslavism covered up with obscure phrases and hollow
slogans on “equality” and “unity” “fraternity”.

The essence of Yugoslavism as a bourgeois ideology and bourgeois
national policy emerges almost openly in the way Kardelj defines this
phenomenon: “The essence of present-day Yugoslavism,” he writes, “can
be only... the community of social, material and political interests of
the working people of all the peoples of Yugoslavia, ... what unites
the peoples of Yugoslavia is their general human component rather than
their narrow national components.”*

* Development of the Slovene national question, pp. 66-67.

It is clear that in a country like Yugoslavia in which private property
exists and develops, in which contradictions between antagonistic
classes are ceaselessly exacerbated and deepened, and in which national
oppression exists in most savage forms, “the general human component”
the Titoites speak about and with which they try to cover up the true
meaning of Yugoslavism, is nothing other than the right of the old and
new bourgeoisie of Yugoslavia, especially the Serb and Croat-Slovene
bourgeoisie, to ruthlessly oppress and exploit the other nations and
nationalities in the system of capitalist self-administration.

The support the LCY gave the concept of Yugoslavism as a national
identity and the propaganda carried out on this question went beyond
the bounds of theory. In the general census of the population of
Yugoslavia taken in 1961, more than 317,000 people declared themselves
of Yugoslav nationality, while in the 1981 census this number rose to
1,216,463, or more than four times the figure of the preceding census.

In Serbia the citizens who have declared themselves Yugoslavs
constitute about 12 per cent of the population, in Croatia 8.4 per
cent, in Bosnia-Herzegovina 7.9 per cent (here those registered as
Yugoslavs are mainly Serbs and Croats); while in Macedonia the citizens
who have declared themselves Yugoslavs make up only 0.7 per cent of the
population, in Kosova 0.2 per cent, etc.

The fact that most of the citizens who have declared themselves
Yugoslavs are Serbs and Croats is stressed also by the Titoite press.
“The main place among the "Yugoslavs”, writes the expert of demographic
sciences Dr. M. Lalovic, “is taken up by Serbs and Croats... who
expressed themselves in greater numbers for the Yugoslav nationality.”*

* NIN, August 22, 1982.

It is evident that Yugoslavism directly serves the interests of the
oppressing nations, and is aimed at the denationalization and
assimilation of smaller nations.

This large and rapid growth in the number of citizens who have declared
themselves Yugoslavs has aroused a fierce polemic at different
republican and federative levels in Yugoslavia. However, the Titoites,
like all the other revisionists, go by a logic of their own. Their
conscious anti-Marxist position, which has always characterized them,
their ingrained hostility to freedom and true equality of nations and
nationalities, and their stubborn defence of the interests of the new
and old Yugoslav bourgeoisie, of which they are part, impel the
Yugoslav revisionists to further foster the bourgeois idea and practice
of the creation of the Yugoslav nationality.

Apart from the Great-Serbs, who express themselves openly and
arrogantly for unitarianism, typical are also the declarations of some
leading personalities of the LCY who claim to be also theoreticians of
the national question. “From the national standpoint, everybody has the
right to identify himself by the milieu in which he has been born, or
declare himself otherwise, that is, also as a Yugoslav,”*
said the member of the leadership of the CC of the LCY, D. Dragosavac
in an interview with the journal Mezhdunarodnaya politika. Dealing with
the same question at a rally at Kozara, another member of the
leadership of the CC of the LCY, H. Pozderac, stressed: “...What is
wrong if someone declares himself a Yugoslav? This is an undeniable
right of every individual and everybody can freely declare himself as
he likes.”**

* Rilindja, May 19, 1983.** TANJUG bulletin, July 4, 1982.

Even after these open declarations in support of the “Yugoslav
nationality” these revisionists have the boldness to claim that
renouncing one's nationality and declaring oneself a “Yugoslav”
allegedly does not lead to identification of the national community
with the state community, that this phenomenon allegedly has nothing to
do with opposition to the efforts for national affirmation. These
claims are so absurd that even many Titoite personalities denounce them
openly. “I think that the emergence of Yugoslavism in the meaning of
nationality, especially the rapid increase in the number of those who
adopt it,” writes Prof. Dr. Dušan Dilandji‰, member of the CC of the CL
of Croatia and professor at the Zagreb Faculty of Political Sciences
“shows that something is not in order in our society, because this is
not a normal social phenomenon... It must be said that, in essence, the
question is about a distortion of the notion of the nation.”*

* Rilindja, May 12, 1982.

Enlivenment and strengthening of the unitarian Serb tendencies has made
the question of “Yugoslavism” even more acute. It was among the main
themes of discussion at the scientific convention on the occasion of
the 40th anniversary of the 1st Meeting of AVNOJ. At the section of
historical sciences a fierce polemic flared up over the issue. The Serb
side openly defended the thesis of the centralized regulation of
Yugoslavia, the same as in the pre-war Kingdom in which the Great-Serb
bourgeoisie made the law in the whole of Yugoslavia. The Great-Serbs
went to such lengths as to express their regret at the disappearance of
the old centralized Yugoslavia and voiced their indignation that the
same road is not being followed today.

These statements aroused strong reaction. “In this campaign,” said the
Slovene sociologist Òtipe Òuvar, “we read and hear that one of the
causes of the destruction of old Yugoslavia... was the hostility to the
Yugoslav idea. However, they (the Great-Serbs – note by the author)
emphasize the ... centralist regulation of old Yugoslavia as the only
real alternative and recommend that the European road be followed in
our time, too, a road which expressed itself in Bismarck's* way of
uniting the Germans around Prussia, in Piedmont's role in the Italian
Risorgimento,** a role which is necessarily attributed to the Serb
people."***

* Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), German chancellor (1871-1890), rabid
enemy of democracy and socialism. By force and violence he brought all
the German lands under Prussia.
** Risorgimento is the broad progressive liberation movement of the
Italian people for national unity, which took place in the 9th century.
Piedmont, a state in northern Italy, the support base for every
political, diplomatic or military action for the unification of Italy,
and the rallying centre for all the different principalities and states
in northern and southern Italy. The Italian Piedmont struggled for
uniting homogenous nationalities into one nation, hence, it played a
positive role in history, whereas the Serb variant of the “Piedmont”
has a totally different content; it expresses the idea of the creation
of Great Serbia through sacrificing the interests of the other nations
of Yugoslavia.

*** Rilindja, Nov. 19, 1983.

The line and policy of the Titoite revisionists which identify the
national community with the state community stems from their idealist
and metaphysical world-outlook, and from the interests of the old and
new Yugoslav bourgeoisie which they defend and represent. Against the
logic of the objective process and the historical conditions which led
to the formation of national communities and the development of
national features, they think they can ignore the strength and
permanency of nations and parts of nations, that they can easily
assimilate some of them.

To tell the nations that make up a state community to renounce their
national identity, to struggle for their merger and liquidation before
the construction of the communist society and, more so, in the
conditions of capitalism, as in the case of Yugoslavia today, is a
metaphysical stand which from the standpoint of the theory of
historical materialism, stems only from a chauvinist policy.

As is known, conditions for the merger and dying away of nations are
created only after the triumph of communism on a world scale. Only the
historical period of transition from the overthrow of capitalism to
communism, the fundamental characteristic of which is the existence o
the dictatorship of the proletariat, creates the conditions for the
formerly oppressed and exploited nations to develop and prosper, and to
display their true merits. Only when private property and the
exploiting classes are liquidated, and when the communist society is
built, will those factors which arise and justify the use of violence
on the part of some nations on other nations, disappear from society,
will true national equality and mutual trust among nations be
established. Any other stand, any negation or tendency to negation of
the efforts for all-round national self-affirmation and development, as
the Titoite revisionists have always done, runs counter to the
dialectical process of the development of history and, as such,
necessarily presupposes the use of savage violence.

“To try to bring about the merger of nations by decrees from above, by
coercion,” says J. V. Stalin, “means to play the game of the
imperialists, to undermine the question of the liberation of nations,
to destroy the organization work for the collaboration and
fraternization of nations. Such a policy would be identical to the
policy of assimilation.”*

* J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 11, p. 342, Alb. ed.

The departure of the Yugoslav revisionists from the Marxist-Leninist
theory of the nation and their open opposition to it is apparent in the
stand they take on another essential aspect of the nation, its content
as a historical community of people.

Formally the Yugoslav revisionists accept that the nation is an
historical social community, but along with this, in the documents and
materials of their party, in the speeches of the Titoite leaders and in
the publications of their daily press there is talk also about the
Moslems, the Roms, or Gipsies, etc. considered as national communities,
nationalities. This is an open distortion of the Marxist-Leninist
theory of the nation. Proceeding from erroneous positions, they
identify the historical social community with the religious or racial
community.

The national community, which is formed and consolidated through a long
historical process, mainly by inner objective material factors, cannot
be confused or identified with the religious communities which are
formed under the influence of subjective factors or racial communities
which are formed mainly under the influence of external biological
factors. “... the nation is not a racial community,” says J. V. Stalin,
“nor is it a tribal community, but it is a historically formed
community of people.”*

* J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 2, p. 292, Alb. ed.

Another flagrant distortion of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the
nation by the Titoite revisionists is that they exclude such an
indispensible component as language from the notion of nation.

The Marxist-Leninist theory has long since proved that the community of language
is one of the more basic characteristics of the national. All the
members of a nation speak a common mother tongue “There is no nation
which can speak different languages at the same time...,”* J. V. Stalin pointed out.

* Ibidem, p. 293.

he process of formation of nations has been associated everywhere with
the formation of their common language. During the centuries which
constitute the period of the pre-capitalist classless society, the
common language and common territory created the conditions for the
gradual implanting, among the members of a nationality, of common
customs and traditions, a common way of life and a common culture, as
well as many-sided common links.

With the overthrow of feudalism and the triumph of the capitalist mode
of production, nationalities are transformed into nations, which are
social communities much more consolidated and much more lasting than
nationalities. Along with economic material factors which, of course,
lie at the foundation of this progressive change, the common language
makes this process easier, is an indivisible element of it, because it
enables the inhabitants of different regions, who in the conditions of
feudalism lived isolated from each other within the possessions of a
feudal lord, to communicate freely with one another in the process of
capitalist production and exchange on the national market created by
this order. So language not only becomes an essential feature of the
nation, but also a condition for its free and all-round development.

From this scientific materialist conception of the content of the
nation and its components stems the Marxist-Leninist thesis that there
can be no development, affirmation or prosperity of nations and of
their national values, without supporting the development and
enrichment of their national language, literature and culture by all
manner of means. From the same conception stems the well-known
proletarian principle that in a multinational state real juridical
equality of national languages and cultures is a primary demand of
democracy and socialism.

However, proceeding from their open anti-Marxist positions, the
Yugoslav revisionists come out with the claim that, in the present-day
conditions of capitalist development language is no longer one of the
main distinctive features of the nation, and that allegedly it is
possible for the members of one nation to speak different languages,
etc. Typical in this aspect are the theories of E. Kardelj who,
speaking about the “union” and “merger” of nations, says that “... the
diversity of languages of this community will by no means be an
impediment, the more so as, with the rising level of the general
culture, people in general will speak several languages. That the
languages of greater nations will at the same time become international
languages, this is obvious.”*

* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 76.

The idealistic metaphysical substance and the reactionary aims of the
Titoites' theses is obvious if we consider that E. Kardelj does not
link the union and merger of nations with the proletarian revolution,
the dictatorship of the proletariat and the triumph of communism on a
world scale – a process which belongs to the future – but sees it as a
process that takes place today, before our very eyes, in the conditions
of capitalism, due to the development of productive forces, scientific
breakthroughs in physics, mathematics, electronics etc., and the
development of the technical-scientific revolution. These productive
forces “which are developing constantly”, says E. Kardelj, “will
gradually transform the consciousness of man and thereby will overcome
national barriers – they have already begun to be brought down – and
man will become a direct citizen of the world.”*

* Ibidem, p 77.

This is pure cosmopolitism advocating the negation of all national
distinctions, the merger and assimilation of the smaller oppressed
nations by the bigger oppressor nations. In this case, too, the Titoite
revisionists emerge to be faithful apologists of American imperialism
and its ideology and policy of exploitation.

With their theories and practices in the spirit of the ideology of
cosmopolitism, the Titoite revisionists serve both international
imperialism, a tool of which they are, and the new and old Yugoslav
bourgeoisie, as their abject spokesmen. The national policy of the LCY
expresses and protects precisely these interests of the bourgeoisie
also in matters of national language and culture. Both in the time of
its most savage expression in the Rankovi… period and in the time when
some concessions were made under great pressure of the oppressed
nations and nationalities, the policy of the LCY has always been
characterized by hatred for non-Serbo-Croat languages and cultures, and
complete lack of equality between them. An example to the point is the
stand maintained towards the Albanian language and literature, to
Albanian music and culture, in general, in Yugoslavia.

Without mentioning the period 1945-1966, which is known as the period
of the most savage Rankovi… terror, when the Albanians living on their
own territories in Yugoslavia were denied even their most elementary
national rights, as has been admitted by the Titoites themselves, we
will dwell here on the development of these two last decades which are
advertised as the ”ideal” of equality among nations and nationalities,
and among national languages and cultures.

It is true that after 1966, the Albanian language, literature, music,
education and culture in Kosova affirmed themselves and developed as
never before. However, that was not the merit or the desire of the
Titoite revisionists, or their line and policy. On the contrary, the
credit for everything goes to the Albanian population of Kosova, which
has achieved and defended everything with blood and innumerable
sacrifices.

Despite these achievements, the Albanian language and culture on the
Albanian territories in Yugoslavia have always been treated by the Serb
and Yugoslav chauvinists as unequal and inferior compared to the
Serbo-Croat language and culture. Hence, the uninterrupted continuation
of efforts (which have been stepped up after the events of 1981) for
the assimilation of the Albanian language and culture in Kosova by the
Serbo-Croat language and culture. “It must be admitted, writes the
newspaper Rilindja, “that despite all results... in the equality of
languages and writings, especially compared with the period before
1966... practice shows that there remains much to be done, particularly
in the case of the Albanian language which is still often treated as a
second-rate language, both in administration and political life.”*

* Rilindja. November 12, 1983.

The press in Kosova brings innumerable examples from everyday life to
show that the Kosova people are denied the right of using their mother
tongue, and that the use of the Serbo-Croat is imposed on them instead.
It stresses with concern that “at every meeting of whatever level,
communal or regional, the debate is conducted mainly in Serbo-Croat.
This practice is followed not only after 1981, but also before it.”*
Significative is the case of a meeting of the Economic Chamber of the
Region of Kosova at which, the Serbo-Croat was the only language used,
although only 3 out of 25 participants were Serbs.

*Ibidem, Rilindja. November 12, 1983.

The
Marxist-Leninist theory of the nation makes it clear that a
multinational state which truly desires and works for developing
inter-national relations in a democratic spirit should guarantee the
freedom and equality of nations and national languages, writings and
cultures, and provide stern and concrete sanctions for those who
violate them. Presenting the demands of the democratic program on the
national question, V. I. Lenin emphasized: “...no privilege absolutely
for any nation or any language; the question of the political
self-determination of nations, that is, their state separation, should
be resolved in a totally free and democratic manner; a law for the
whole state should be issued by which any measure... which envisages
privileges for one of the nationalities in whatever field or which
encroaches on the equality of nations or the rights of a national
minority should be declared illegal and null and void... while every
citizen should be recognised the right to demand the annulment of this
measure as anti-constitutional and penal sanctions against those who
apply it.”*

* V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 20, p. 7, Alb. edn.

The Titoite revisionists who claim to have resolved the national
question in the “Leninist” way, but who are actually far from its
democratic solution, have never had or have such a law. As
social-chauvinists, the Titoites included formally in their 1974
Constitution an article about the equality of languages and writings of
nations and nationalities*
and promised that they would issue the relative law on the basis of
this article. However, more than ten years have gone by since then and
“neither” the Federation nor the Republic of Serbia have promulgated
any law on the equality of national languages and writings.**

* The Official Gazette of the FSR of Yugoslavia, no. 9, 1974, p. 242.** Rilindja, November 20, 1983.

The attempts of Serb and other chauvinists to deny the Albanians living
in Yugoslavia their literature and culture and to impose on them
through violence the so-called great cultures which supposedly are the
only ones capable of contributing to the development of other cultures
without borrowing anything from the cultural wealth of other peoples
and nations, can never achieve their aims. Although by “great cultures”
they mean, in the first place, the present-day Serb culture which
largely reflects the chauvinist interests of the Great-Serbs, such an
attack on the culture of the Albanian people in Kosova is bound to come
up against the resolute opposition of the Albanians there. “To insist
on contribution only, as the logic of great cultures implies,” said a
Kosovar speaker at the meeting of the Commission of Culture and
International Relations at the CC of the LC of Serbia, “and not on
borrowing from smaller cultures, and here unfortunately the cultures of
nationalities are treated as minor cultures, is a blatantly hegemonist
logic.”*
At the same meeting another Kosovar speaker emphasized, “We constantly
stage plays from the repertoire of Serbia and Vojvodina, but there is
not a single case of Serbia or Vojvodina staging plays from the
repertoire of Kosova.”**

* Rilindja, November 24, 1983.** Ibidem.

Attempts to impose the Serbo-Croat language to the detriment of
Albanian are apparent especially in cinematography. Not only are all
Yugoslav films (with the exclusion of those produced by Prishtina)
shown in Serbo-Croat, but also all foreign films shown in Kosova are
dubbed in Serbo-Croat only. This happens only in Kosova, since in the
other republics which are outside the language area of Kosova, such as
the SR of Slovenia and the SR of Macedonia, foreign films are
translated into their respective languages.

Of course, in self-administrative Titoite Yugoslavia, the cultures of
other nations, such as the Montenegrins, Macedonians, Slovenes and
others are also threatened with assimilation. This is apparent to them,
too, hence everywhere there are frictions, reactions and
counter-measures. Precisely because of this situation, a section for
the Slovene language was set up recently, with the mission of
preserving the purity of this language. The threat of the imposition of
the Serbo-Croat in Slovenia was the object of a discussion also at a
meeting of the Presidency of the CC of the LC of Slovenia. Discussing
the present-day development of the Slovene language at this meeting,
the secretary of the Presidency of the CC of the LC of Slovenia, Franc
Shtetinc, said: “Conditions are being created for attempts at stirring
up a harmful unitarian hatred and a chauvinist stand on language
outside actual language culture.”*

* TANJUG bulletin, November 1, 1982.

The Titoite revisionists continued distortion of the Marxist-Leninist
concept of the nation is indivisible from the line of political and
economic inequality and oppression they have always pursued in
inter-national relations. The consequences of this chauvinist policy
can be seen everywhere in Yugoslavia. But they are more blatant in
Kosova and in the other Albanian-inhabited regions where economic
backwardness is more pronounced.

The conclusion that Kosova lags far behind not only compared with the
more developed republics and the average of the Federation, but also
compared with the less developed republics, is substantiated by the
analysis and comparison of the basic indices of the development of the
region, such as the social product and the national income per capita,
employment, number of doctors, pupils and students per 1,000
inhabitants, etc.

Unemployment is one of the greatest ulcers. From the reports of the
Yugoslav press it emerges that one in every 2-3 citizens is employed in
Slovenia, one in every 4 in Croatia, one in every 5 in Serbia, one in
every 6 in Bosnia-Hercegovina, while the figure for Kosova is one in
11. The problem becomes more complicated in Kosova, as employment
differs much for different nationalities. In this region one in every 4
Montenegrins, one in every 5-6 Serbs and one in every 18 Albanians has
an occupation in the social sphere. Unemployment among the Albanians of
Kosova is even higher when we take into account that about 100,000 of
them have in recent years emigrated to other regions of Yugoslavia or
abroad.

The problem of unemployment in Kosova is estimated to become more acute
and worrying in the future. Thus while in Slovenia there is only one
candidate for every newly created job, the figure for Serbia is 2.3 for
Vojvodina 4.8, for Croatia 5.3, for Montenegro 12.8, for
Bosnia-Hercegovina 13.4, for Macedonia 18.6 and for Kosova 41.8.

Even if we judge from the more fundamental index – the social product
and the national income per capita – Kosova is 6 times more backward
than Slovenia, 5 times more backward than Croatia, 4 times more
backward than Vojvodina, 3 times more backward than the average of the
Federation and the Republic of Serbia and 2 times more backward than
the other less developed republics. While to the requests of the
Kosovars to narrow the gap of economic inequality, the Titoite
revisionists reply with promises and lies, with anger and rage, they
resort to the army, tanks and aviation to suppress the legitimate
demands of the Albanian population in the political field, especially
to its just request for a republic of its own, like the others nations
in the Yugoslav Federation.

The founders of the materialist scientific doctrine on the development
of society, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, considered the right of
nations and nationalities to self-determination as the right to
equality, first of all, in the political field. “The right of nations
to self-determination,” V. I. Lenin forcefully stressed, “means their
absolute right to independence in the political meaning...”*
Hence the conclusion that achievement of equality in the political
field, in international relations, even within the framework of a
bourgeois-democratic solution, is also a condition for the development
of less advanced nations in the economic field so as to be protected,
to a certain extent, against national oppression, too.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 22, p. 174, Alb. edn.

This
truth, when the question is about the Slovenes, is admitted by Kardelj,
too. “After long periods of dependence,” he writes, describing the
situation of the Slovene nation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then
under Serb hegemony, “the Slovenes gained their own state, the
Socialist People's Republic of Slovenia, in the framework of the
Yugoslav Federation. With this the centuries-old historical aspirations
of the more progressive forces of the Slovene people were realized.”*
Hence, apparently E. Kardelj links the solution of the problem of the
national equality of the Slovenes in the Yugoslav Federation with the
creation of the Slovene Republic. If this is so then why the demand of
the Albanians for the proclamation of Kosova as a republic of the
Yugoslav Federation is “irredentist”, “nationalist” and
“counter-revolutionary”, when it is known that on their own territories
in Yugoslavia they constitute an ethnic group which, from the numerical
standpoint, is larger than not only the Montenegrins and Macedonians,
but also the Slovenes?

* Development of the Slovene national question, p. 46.

On every occasion the PLA and Comrade
Enver Hoxha have forcefully exposed the “theories” of the nation and
the practices of the Titoite revisionists on the national question and
have revealed their dangerous character. They have shown the oppressed
peoples and nations the true road to liberation, which is that of
uncompromising struggle against the superpowers, the bourgeoisie and
its servants – the modern revisionists of all hues.